This area includes some of the more historical neighborhoods with a variety of housing stock, and some of the older commercial and industrial areas in Madison. It also includes some of the more active neighborhood and business associations in the City. It, too, is an area where the
CD program has been very active with a broad range of affordable housing, business development, neighborhood center and community gardens programs. Previous housing
activities have included cooperative efforts with Common Wealth on the development of a lease-to-own program, the Falconer and Third Lake Ridge Cooperatives, and the retention of the Madison Mutual Housing Association properties as affordable housing.
In 2003, Common Wealth opened a new 60-unit Yahara Riverview Apartment project, assisted with HOME funds. The
CD program has also worked with such agencies as Tellurian to rehab its Willy Street SRO housing, St. Vincent DePaul to improve its Port St. Vincent, Future Madison Housing to acquire its Darbo-Worthington complex, and Operation Fresh Start, the Madison Area CLT, and the Tenney Lapham Corporation to promote ownership or affordable housing in the area. Previous economic development projects have included the conversion of four blighting properties – an
Amoco gas station, a porn theatre, a junkyard, and a nuisance tavern – into more productive uses, such as an elderly housing project, the Barrymore Theatre, the Third Lake Market, and the mixed-use project that is now home to Common Wealth
Development and several assisted housing units. Two major job generation projects have involved the development of business space for growing businesses – the Madison Enterprise Center and the Main Street Industries facility.
In 2003, the City, working with the Madison schools and several neighborhoods,
completed improvements to the Hawthorne School playground to make it more of a
focal point for neighborhood activity. CD funds also helped in several
activities emerging from neighborhood planning processes involving the
Schenk-Atwood-Worthington and Carpenter-Ridgeway areas. In 2002, the City
installed pedestrian lights along the Johnson Street business area, and in 2004
installed traffic calming measures in the Worthington area. The East Madison
Community Center expanded its space to handle its buses and storage areas for
programming equipment.